Let's Talk About Forge

[Kasbak]

Madness you say?



(I'm sorry, it popped in my head and wouldn't leave unless I did it)

[Dougansf]

[Utsukushi]

It seems like a lot of that is going to fall into how you handle downtime, and how much your GM is using that as a control on the game. But remember that the weapon's base Damage Step doesn't limit its Forging potential anymore, either -- so if you start with a 2 Handed Sword (Step 7), and increase it, oh, let's say +15 since we're talking about end-game problems, then you'll have a Step 22 weapon. If you start with a Broadsword (Step 5) and a Short Sword (Step 4), you can end up with a Step 20 and a Step 19... assuming your two-handed Warrior has a Strength Step of, let's say, 8, she'll be getting one attack a round with Step 30 damage. (Well, OK - Step 45, because she's maxed out Crushing Blow, too.)

The dual-wielding Swordmaster with the Strength Step of 6 will get three attacks a round at Step 26, Step 25, and Step 26 again. Assuming everyone rolls Step - which is actually the fair assumption in Earthdawn - the Warrior does 45 damage and the Swordmaster does 77.

If we scale all of that back to make Forging based on the actual base-weapon again, the Warrior gets 8+7+7+15= Step 37, while the Swordmaster gets 6+5+5 and 6+4+4, so... 16/14/16, for a total of 46.

Hmm. That does seem more fair. I've never had the chance to play at those Circles, actually, but the common wisdom here seems inexplicable to me... how is the two handed weapon better? I could totally see it in 1st Edition, when all of the attack-adding-effects had exclusivity clauses, but in 3rd, I'm really not finding it.

I do think the time-spent-Forging needs some thought. It's an important ability -- even if it's outsourced to NPCs -- and downtime is something that doesn't have to take up game-time really... but I do think people occasionally look up and realize that their orcs have exceeded their race's average lifespan by some 3000%. When the party has to spend three months a year just keeping their weapons ready, that starts to seriously push game-time forward.

[Gkeckley]

As far as having to switch to a 2 handed weapon at higher circles it actually depends. The Sword Master in my group had to make the switch because they fell so far behind in damage. But now that they have Critical Hit and Shield Beater it is not as necessary. The warrior in the group actually switched from a 2 handed sword to a broad sword at about 10th circle. With Crushing Blow, Critical Hit, and Shield Beater he found that adding a shield for more armor was actually better than the 6 extra steps of damage that the threaded 2 handed sword provided.

[Gkeckley]

You have not factored in armor. If you factor in 22 points of armor the two handed sword is doing 23 damage per attack as opposed to 5 per attack for the dual wielder. Also the 2 handed wielder can just as easily get second attack making the damage comparison 46 per round for the 2 handed fighter and 15 a round for the dual weapon. Also you fail to take in consideration at 9th circle the Warrior gets access to Frenzy so he can take as many attacks as the dual wielder making this even worse. In short against non armored or lightly armored opponents the dual wielder does fine. Against heavily armored opponents they start to lose ground fast.

[Kasbak]

[Dougansf]

I recall a lot of Armor Defeating Hits at high levels of ED1. It basically came down to defend or ADH. I'm not sure if that changed in ED3.

(Going even farther afield of this threads topic) Which is why I hope that defense talents will matter when they don't quite make the TN, but will somehow reduce the attackers effectiveness in some way. Not totally, of course (defender is still getting hit), but somewhat.

[sirserafin]

Number of items which Weaponsmith can work on should be bigger. I think about one item taking two hours a day what allows for three-four items a day.

Imagine (forging rules as written), a four persons team arrived to village and all of them wants to forge they weapon twice but there is only one Weaponsmith in range. "OK, don't bother, man! We will wait. It's just two months." It's ridiculous to me. Two weeks of rest/advancing while waiting for ending of Weaponsmith's work - OK, two months - what universe you want to create? Who will get his 10 (or at least 5) times forged broadsword if it's so time consuming?

I like the rule that bigger success level grants more forge levels at one time but Weaponsmith should be allowed to pick what level (number of forging) he finally get as customer sometimes can't afford to pay for so great results.

I mostly like new talents progression of Disciplines, most of presented talents and discipline abilities but things like changing Success Table, forging, using a shields, kicking out Armor-Defeating Hits with no ideas how to stick things together seems like nice try to ruin the system (and I don't like it as I already paid for 4ed books). Smoothing 3rd Edition - OK, changing everything just because first idea looks fresh - nope. Have you thought about in-game changes what rule change brings? You said "Forge Blade" were useless after adepts got Thread Items - maybe, but the market of forged and magical items was finally pretty balanced. Now main problem will be looking for Weaponsmiths all the time to keep the bonus as foes will be stronger (no armor-defeating hits) and with no bonus which should be just option in game defeating them will be a lot harder. But even getting this damage bonus seems to be hard to get. Wonder about new rules of creating magical items and excuse for final price for them if there is no forging requirements.

Plus, you don't forget about Infuse Blade/Armor talent, right?

[Tanthalas]

[sirserafin]